French experimenter Ferdinand
Ferber had learned vague details of the Wrights’ work
as early as 1901 and built a crude copy of their initial glider
in 1902. In February 1903, he published an article calling
on his countrymen to recapture the lead in flight research.

Ferber Wright-type glider, 1902

Two months later, Octave
Chanute gave an address to the Aéro-Club de France
in which he detailed the 1900–02 Wright experiments.
However, his technical descriptions of the gliders were inaccurate

“Type de Wright”

Several leading French experimenters built
“type de Wright” gliders based on Chanute’s
sketchy details. The performance of these copies was poor,
however, and planted seeds of doubt among Europeans about
the advances the Wrights had achieved.

• Ferber Wright-type
glider, 1902

• Voisin-Blériot float glider, 1905.

• Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont made the first public
flight of a powered airplane in Europe with his 14-bis on
October 23, 1906, covering 60 meters (197 feet). On November
12, 1906, he traveled 220 meters (722 feet), still short of
the Wrights’ best flight of 1903.

• Robert Esnault-Pelterie’s modern-looking monoplane
had no rudder, but it made a hop of 600 meters (1,970 feet)
in November 1907.

• The Red Wing was the first powered aircraft built
by the A.E.A. It made two brief hops in March 1908. The A.E.A.’s
second airplane, the White Wing, flew 310 meters (1,017 feet)
in May 1908.